Rex B. Hamilton reports on the 2006 MHC

[RexBHamilton]

Rex B. Hamilton reports on the 2006 Midwest Haunters Convention


July 26, 2006


Greetings, Fellow Haunters:


My three days at this year’s Midwest Haunters Convention on the 14th - 16th was a satisfying experience. I was there for “prep day” (Friday) and the actual show on Saturday and Sunday.

The biggest change in 2006 was the venue itself. This year the show was held at the large Columbus Hyatt Regency Hotel, just a handful of blocks from the state capitol. It is one of the best haunted convention locations that one could hope for. On the hotel’s second floor, the 7,000- square-foot vendor room was located right next to the block of 8 classrooms and right across the hall from an even larger ballroom that hosted the Monster Make-up Wars, Costume Ball and Sunday auction.

When you took the nearby escalator down a floor, you found yourself at the entrance to the hotel’s food court of about 10 eateries. Since the Greater Columbus Convention Center is glued directly to the Hyatt, you can imagine the large underground parking lot that serviced both buildings. The hotel also sported a large, wood-paneled bar and an airy, glass-ceilinged restaurant for those who liked a touch of the high life.

Attendees at this year’s MHC did not have to leave the building during the two convention days.

For most of Friday morning, I walked the convention’s layout and watched as vendors began setting up shop. After carefully casing the joint, I popped in on the all-day “Complete Creative Character Building” seminar taught by Todd “Horrificus” Poole and Geoff “Arachnid” Beck.

I wrangled a lunch at the hotel’s restaurant with one of this seminar’s students, Jamie, and her mother, Carrie. Jamie is a 19-year-old haunted actress and make-up artist from the Joliet, Illinois area. This spring she was a monstress at Dreamreapers Haunted House during the TransWorld convention. Her Mom is Jamie’s biggest fan. All you have to do is watch Carrie’s eyes to see the pride and satisfaction bubbling inside her for her daughter’s chosen vocation.

I popped in multiple times on the all-day “Scaring for a Living” seminar that featured Ann Marie and Tim Gavinski from Waukesha, Wisconsin and Crazy Bob Turner from Fremont, Ohio. In between these visits, I remarked several times to co-producer Barry Schieferstein how quiet and calm the vendor room was that day. Vendors leisurely set up their displays, organized their merchandise and tested their effects while intermittently gossiping with their neighbors.

At 2:30 my time to shine had arrived. For 45 minutes, I spoke to the students in Todd and Geoff’s acting class. It was a wildly unscripted session where I told acting stories (true ones) and tried to give the small crowd a sense of the calculated insanity that a haunted actor needs in order to be at star. They must have liked what I said because they gave me an enthusiastic round of applause.

I was so absorbed in watching everything about the show and talking to as many people as I could, that it wasn’t until later in the afternoon that I realized that most people were wearing a MHC name badge and I wasn’t. After a little bit of searching on the hotel’s first floor, I found the Peppercorn Room, the reserved cocktail lounge that hosted the convention’s pre-registration desk and welcome party. It’s an inviting, two-level room that looks out through two-story plate glass windows over some splendidly-subdued landscaping.

The Friday night haunt tour started out well with a reception and behind-the-scenes tour at Scareparts, a Columbus animatronic manufacturer. Owner Keith Korner appeared to have more partygoers at his shop this year than in 2005. Next the buses and cars sped all the way across town to Costume Specialists, a costume and make-up store. Its selection of make-up materials is larger than most stores and the 20% store-wide discount that evening made for a continuous line of haunters at the cash register.

The third and final stop was a haunted tour of Dead Acres, which for many years was known as The Haunted Hoochie. It’s a long walk (20 minutes by my watch) with quite a bit of scenery to look at. After my tour, I snuck around back to see what made it so big. I discovered that there are 5 or 6 buildings (it’s difficult to tell) all butted up against each other.

On Saturday morning, I arrived right at 8 AM and immediately went into glad-handing mode. I spent nearly the entire morning standing between the registration tables and the doorway to the vendor room, greeting the steady stream of attendees. On my left, the four ladies at the registration tables worked hard and fast. To my right was the wide, double-door entrance and exit to the vendors. As the morning progressed, the noise level oozing out of that doorway grew louder.

I had lunch with my Comrades In Harm (tm), the Scab 5, in the food court. We all liked what we had seen thus far in the morning classes. (Just before going to lunch, I took a good look at the vendor room and noticed that the many attendees were clogging up most of the aisles.) As good friends so often do, we gossiped like crazy in between bites of our food and glances at our watches.

At this year’s MHC, I attended just one entire class. It was Jen Sharlow’s nice talk, right after lunch, about hiring celebrities for your haunt. During the final Saturday time slot I dropped in on Jeff “Samhain” Glatzer’s two-hour session about soft sculpting with latex and cotton. I also spent a few, quiet minutes in Tawny “Adolphia” and Roger “Ichabod” Miller’s room where they led a two-hour session they call “Original Character Development.”

Once the daytime activities at MHC were over, it was time to shift into high gear. To round out the day on Saturday, attendees were treated to MHC’s Monster Make-up Wars from 4:30 until 6 PM. Five teams of three people, a model and two make-up artists, were given a secret container of make-up items. The artists were then charged with the task of creating the most horrific character possible. What made this showdown of skill all the more interesting was that it was hosted by B-movie persona Chuck Williams and haunt producer Crazy Bob Turner. Their job was to not shut up for an entire hour, and they performed their task satisfactorily.

I was lucky enough to be the contest’s winning entry. The credit for my victory, of course, goes to my two artists - Jeff “Samhain” Glatzer and Tawny “Adolphia” Miller. It was their inventiveness and creativity that won the day. Many people took photographs of my finished look. Let’s all hope that they publish these shots soon. I didn’t know what I looked like during the contest. Jeff and the T-Lady were so intent on making me gruesome that they didn’t talk to me. They talked to each other for a full hour. I just sat there and took it. I had to go to the men’s room after the contest and look into the mirror to see what the heck I looked like. I did not see any mirrors during the competition.

Around 6:30 PM it was time for me to shift into overdrive. I set up my Haunted Photo Shoot rig and was ready to go for the scheduled time of 8 till 10 PM. The actual starting point for photography was about 8:40 PM and I didn’t strike the set until about 11:10. I got some great shots and I thank all the people who deigned to pose in front of my cameras.

By the time I had packed up my photo studio, the costume ball was winding down. I grabbed some of what little food was left and a cold beer and sat with some friends for a few minutes. But I did not want to be hung over for my Sunday class, so I called it an early night.

I arrived at the Convention Center at 9 on Sunday morning. The four convention producers, Barry Schieferstein, Neena Robinson Collins, Kathy Schieferstein and Kelly Collins, kindly made the Sunday morning schedule a light one - just in case some haunters had difficulty waking up.

Since there were no morning classes, I divided my attention between the vendor room and the silent auction and haunted auction, hosted by Crazy Bob Turner. Most of my time was spent in the vendor room, chatting them up. My very unofficial interpretation of these chats was that vendors were having a profitable time in Ohio.

My big task for the day was to teach my class called “Five Great Haunted Publicity Events”right after lunch. This is a class aimed at haunt producers in which I lay out five opportunities to make the general public aware of your show at little or no cost. Since there were only ten, or so, attendees, we all sat in a round-robin setting.

One of the intangible benefits of teaching classes is that sometimes your students will educate you. This was one of those times. They took notes of my experiences, and I happily took notes of theirs.

One of the fun parts about being a certified geezer in the haunt industry is the ability to introduce two haunted businesses to one another who really need each other. Rob Johnson is the owner of Body Bagging in Michigan. He’s a make-up artist with talent and a seller of a small selection of make-up appliances and materials. He’s taught at both MHC and the Great Lakes Fright Fest. What Rob does not have is recognition within the haunted industry. He needs marketing assistance. Late in the afternoon I was fortunate enough to introduce him to Jim and Laura from HauntPortal (or HauntedPortal, they both work) which is a very new Web site, launched in the hope that it will be a gateway to all things haunted and Halloween.

Whether HauntPortal.com will be a success, or whether Rob will snare more customers because of HauntPortal.com’s efforts on his behalf are conclusions that I can’t predict. My joy comes in creating opportunities for haunters to increase each other’s businesses.

As I drove back to Cleveland that evening, I reflected on some of the small but pleasant surprises that happened at MHC:

There were four ladies who held down the fort at the convention’s registration desks. All of them had a mouth on them, but the biggest honker was Rhee LaFountain from the Dayton area. She sported a name badge that screamed “Go Away!” while raucously embracing everyone who approached her table.

Ross Karpelman, co-producer of New Orleans’ House of Shock, stopped by the vendor area on early Saturday afternoon. He proudly told me that House of Shock will be open this October.

During my Saturday night Photo Shoot, three different haunters bought me a beer because they could see how stressed out I was taking pictures. (There are times when I get really focused on something.) Derek Vitas of the Rockin R Ranch here in the Cleveland area, winner of the IAHA auction for my services this coming fall, is the only one I can remember. Hopefully, the other two will identify themselves to me.



There are plenty of other tidbits of this year’s show that I could pass along to you. But I think the most helpful thing I can do is to invite you to join us next year. I’m fairly sure that you’ll find us Ohioans a hospitable group of spookers. We look forward to meeting you.


Very truly yours,


Rex B. Hamilton


13939 Clifton Boulevard
Lakewood, Ohio 44107-1462
216.226.7764 (Home)
216.973.0050 (Cell)
EvilLordZargon@msn.com

[tantraman]

Your quite the spammer.